Bad news in the AJC:

The State Election Board voted unanimously Friday to conduct recounts of Georgia’s new paper ballots with scanning machines instead of people.

The board approved an elections rule that requires recounts to rely on bar codes, despite opposition from protesters who lined the walls of the meeting room. The protesters held signs calling for paper ballots filled out by hand instead of Georgia’s new hybrid voting system, which combines touchscreens and printed-out paper ballots.

The board’s decision means that until statewide audits of election results begin in November, the readable text on ballots won’t be counted. Votes will be tabulated based on QR codes printed on paper ballots.

Election integrity advocacy groups had argued that recounts by hand were necessary to ensure accuracy of vote counts. A hand count would check whether the printed text that voters see matches the bar codes.